Senator Lott

WASHINGTON - Several readers have e-mailed requests for me to please write something about what a boneheaded statement Senate Republican leader Trent Lott made during his tribute to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond on Dec. 5. I am honored that some people, in their quest for an alternative to the babble-on gasbags of conservative talk radio and cable TV, would turn to a cut-up like me to be their hatchet man. Still, liberals should be reluctant in...

TRENT LOTT inadvertently did his Senate Republican colleagues and the entire Grand Old Party a big favor. He effectively forced himself out of the job of Senate majority leader and made way for a successor who can more credibly reflect the egalitarian views many modern Republicans espouse. Senator Lott was simply bowing to the inevitable, of course, when he announced Friday that he would step down from the leadership post he has held since 1996. The segregationist sympathies the Mississippian seemed to be expressing in offhand comments at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party two weeks ago put his colleagues as well as the Bush White House in an untenable situation.

That the Republicans in the Senate want a whip who is more conservative than Alan Simpson is a stunning thought. You probably didn't know there was anybody right of him. The National Journal ranks him just slightly left of Sen. Jesse Helms and Sen. Trent Lott.Senator Lott is the Mississippian elected to replace Wyoming's Senator Simpson, who has been whip for a decade. Senator Simpson may have lost in part because of his close association with Sen. Bob Dole, soon to be majority leader. Senator Lott is a Phil Gramm man, and Texan Gramm is, in the Senate at least, Senator Dole's main (and more conservative)

ARLINGTON, Va. - Circumstances have changed since Republican senators elected Sen. Trent Lott as their majority leader 10 days after the November congressional elections. Mr. Lott's seemingly nostalgic remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond's days as a segregationist 1948 presidential candidate have created a political predicament that has yet be resolved, despite Mr. Lott's repeated apologies and contrition. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, Don Nickles of Oklahoma, proposed a way out of the mess in which the GOP now finds itself.

WASHINGTON -- The president's sugary Philadelphia ''summit'' on volunteerism suggests a political era of good feeling or, what is much the same thing, an era of no thinking. However, last week there was a welcome sign of seriousness -- an infusion of ill will into the political argument. Unfortunately for Republicans, it is within their ranks.Shortly before the Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, the man who made ratification possible, Trent Lott of Mississippi, his patience sorely tried, approached another Republican on the Senate floor to complain about how hard it is to get along with conservatives.

ANYONE with Elian Gonzalez' well-being at heart must be pleased that he is with his father and baby half-brother at last, in seclusion on the Eastern Shore, joined by others near and dear. Distant relatives in Miami, claiming possession of a political symbol, had denied him his father; kept him from school; prevented any hope of friends, and put him on public display, surrounded by noisy political demonstrators 24 hours a day. No one can pretend that was a healthy environment for a six-year-old who was alone in terror after his mother drowned.

TRENT LOTT inadvertently did his Senate Republican colleagues and the entire Grand Old Party a big favor. He effectively forced himself out of the job of Senate majority leader and made way for a successor who can more credibly reflect the egalitarian views many modern Republicans espouse. Senator Lott was simply bowing to the inevitable, of course, when he announced Friday that he would step down from the leadership post he has held since 1996. The segregationist sympathies the Mississippian seemed to be expressing in offhand comments at Sen. Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party two weeks ago put his colleagues as well as the Bush White House in an untenable situation.

DESPITE THE ACRIMONY of the election campaign, Democrats and Republicans are remarkably close in their assessments of what should be top priorities on the national agenda. Both parties are pledged to work for a balanced budget by 2002 and their leaders realize full well that this goal can be reached only through tight restrictions on the cost escalation of Medicare.But this is where rubbed-raw politics moves in. Republicans are angry over the "demagoguery" of Democrats who accused the GOP of trying to "cut" and even "destroy" the program when, in fact, the only argument was to what extent the growth in Medicare spending should be limited.

IN THE END it became Trent Lott's treaty. The Senate Republican leader was key to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. After intricate negotiations with an administration that considered the pact a supreme test of President Clinton's world leadership, Senator Lott defied fellow conservatives and thus aligned himself with an internationalist Republican position that goes back to the early post-war era of Arthur Vandenberg.The Mississippi Republican warned the U.S. would suffer "real and lasting consequences" if it rejected a treaty in which the credibility of Presidents Bush and Clinton was at stake.

WITH NEWT GINGRICH precariously perched in the House speaker's chair, and his future by no means secure, the most powerful figure on Capitol Hill this year is Senate majority leader Trent Lott. The Mississippi Republican, suave but tough, has made it clear House Republicans will no longer be setting the legislative agenda as they did in 1995 and 1996. Much of the initiative is going to shift to the Senate.Senator Lott will begin by pushing that old chestnut, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

WASHINGTON - Several readers have e-mailed requests for me to please write something about what a boneheaded statement Senate Republican leader Trent Lott made during his tribute to South Carolina Sen. Strom Thurmond on Dec. 5. I am honored that some people, in their quest for an alternative to the babble-on gasbags of conservative talk radio and cable TV, would turn to a cut-up like me to be their hatchet man. Still, liberals should be reluctant in...

WHEN Deputy Secretary of Defense John M. Deutch was being confirmed by the Senate as CIA director in 1995, he said he was determined to restore the agency's credibility with the public. That role may now be more suited to the Justice Department. The department should investigate Mr. Deutsch's alleged security lapses as thoroughly -- but not as ineptly -- as it did comparable lapses by Wen Ho Lee, a career computer scientist at Los Alamos laboratory. Mr. Lee sat in solitary confinement for nine months under 24-hour lighting; he was accused of leaking secrets to a foreign power or job-seeking abroad.

ANYONE with Elian Gonzalez' well-being at heart must be pleased that he is with his father and baby half-brother at last, in seclusion on the Eastern Shore, joined by others near and dear. Distant relatives in Miami, claiming possession of a political symbol, had denied him his father; kept him from school; prevented any hope of friends, and put him on public display, surrounded by noisy political demonstrators 24 hours a day. No one can pretend that was a healthy environment for a six-year-old who was alone in terror after his mother drowned.

WASHINGTON -- As senators struggled yesterday to decide how quickly to conduct a trial of President Clinton, leaders of the House impeachment drive argued for the chance to make a full presentation of their case, complete with testimony from witnesses.Trent Lott, the Senate majority leader, floated a proposal for a two-week trial next month that would conclude with a vote on whether to remove Clinton from office. If less than the necessary two-thirds of the Senate voted to convict, a lesser sanction, such as censure, could be taken up."

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has enjoyed a reputation for years as, among other things, a prudent and ringwise politician. But that reputation is clearly in peril after his baffling decision to make a public attack on homosexuals.Mr. Lott deserves to be taken at his word when he says he considers homosexuality a sin and a condition that can be corrected, such as alcoholism, kleptomania and sexual addiction. There is a mountain of evidence his comparisons do not make sense, but if that's what he wants to believe, so be it. He is, as they say, entitled.

TOMORROW COULD PROVE pivotal for campaign finance reform. Unless Republican moderates back a watered-down bipartisan bill to ban unregulated "soft money" to political parties, a deadlocked Senate could shelve the matter indefinitely.The vote will be close. All 45 Senate Democrats support the McCain-Feingold bill along with four Republicans. That leaves them one vote shy of the 50 votes they need to enable Vice President Al Gore to break a tie.But before this vote is taken, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has mischievously put forth another amendment designed to torpedo the bill.

BY PUTTING an important treaty banning chemical weapons on hold, Sen. Jesse Helms, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is putting President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Senate majority leader Trent Lott on the spot.By April 29, this arms pact will come into force -- even if the United States has failed to ratify it. Washington would have no part in staffing or implementing the treaty's enforcement. The American chemical industry would be put at a competitive disadvantage.

TOMORROW COULD PROVE pivotal for campaign finance reform. Unless Republican moderates back a watered-down bipartisan bill to ban unregulated "soft money" to political parties, a deadlocked Senate could shelve the matter indefinitely.The vote will be close. All 45 Senate Democrats support the McCain-Feingold bill along with four Republicans. That leaves them one vote shy of the 50 votes they need to enable Vice President Al Gore to break a tie.But before this vote is taken, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has mischievously put forth another amendment designed to torpedo the bill.

WASHINGTON -- The president's sugary Philadelphia ''summit'' on volunteerism suggests a political era of good feeling or, what is much the same thing, an era of no thinking. However, last week there was a welcome sign of seriousness -- an infusion of ill will into the political argument. Unfortunately for Republicans, it is within their ranks.Shortly before the Senate ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, the man who made ratification possible, Trent Lott of Mississippi, his patience sorely tried, approached another Republican on the Senate floor to complain about how hard it is to get along with conservatives.

IN THE END it became Trent Lott's treaty. The Senate Republican leader was key to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention. After intricate negotiations with an administration that considered the pact a supreme test of President Clinton's world leadership, Senator Lott defied fellow conservatives and thus aligned himself with an internationalist Republican position that goes back to the early post-war era of Arthur Vandenberg.The Mississippi Republican warned the U.S. would suffer "real and lasting consequences" if it rejected a treaty in which the credibility of Presidents Bush and Clinton was at stake.